This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Business & Tech

Optimist Club Gears Up For Cancer Walk On Saturday

The sixth annual "Walk and Family Fun Day" raised $40,000 last year for childhood cancer patients and their families

Dunk tanks, a moonbounce, live music and a walk for cancer will spring up along Maple Avenue on Saturday morning as the Optimist Club of Greater Vienna presents its sixth annual “Walk and Family Fun Day” to raise money for children with cancer.

“We’re moving it down to the Town Green this year and we expect a lot of walk by traffic,” said Sara Goldberg, a community relations rep for the OCGV. “We have had more community involvement since the first annual walk, we have a lot of repeat supporters -- last year was the biggest turnout we’ve ever had.”

In 2010, the group raised more than $40,000 from the walk and donated some proceeds to Growing Hope, a Northern Virginia based foundation that provides financial and other forms of assistance to the families of children with cancer. Additionally, another 25 percent of the proceeds went to the John Hopkins University Cancer Research Program.

Interested in local real estate?Subscribe to Patch's new newsletter to be the first to know about open houses, new listings and more.

The 2,900 member-Vienna branch of Optimist International is active in running programs for and to benefit area youth. OCGV meets bi-weekly at the Marco Polo restaurant and offers a great wealth of ways for the community to become involved in molding youth, including vocational scholarships and academic excellence awards.

Saturday, in addition to the the three mile walk for cancer, there will be a balloon artist, raffle, dunk tank and more for kids.

Interested in local real estate?Subscribe to Patch's new newsletter to be the first to know about open houses, new listings and more.

“We’re hoping to get the mayor in the dunk tank,” said Tom Bauer, Vice President of Media Relations for OCGV. “Some people may choose to do the walk and some won’t, we just want people to come together for this great cause.”

Goldberg spoke of a family that lost their car, but was able to get stipends for public transportation from Growing Hope.

“Growing Hope has such a benevolent cause, they want to aid the cancer patients themselves, but also their families,” Goldberg said. “It can be very stressful having to focus so much attention and effort on one child, you may have others that want to do fun kid things that you can’t afford because of the treatment. It breaks your heart to see so much need and only be able to satisfy a small portion of it.”

The event will run from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Saturday on the Town Green. For more information, see the OCGV website.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?